Canadians rejoice! Telus has opened up the BlackBerry 8130 for sale, $199.99 with a three year hook in your cheek. Side-loading microSD slot, 2 mpx camera, EVDO compatibility, GPS, A2DP, and comes bundled with not only the lovely new Facebook app, but also Pocket Express. A solid release combined with Telus’ generally rosy third quarter report paints a pretty picture for this carrier’s near future. Props to BlackBerry Sync for nailing the dates and deets.

UPDATE: With a bit of smooth talking, yours truly got the Telus folks here in Ottawa to crack open their shipment early. The rep I talked with hadn’t touched a BlackBerry before, so she was just about as excited as I was to give it a shot.

The sideloading microSD slot is a beautiful thing. I even got to pop mine in and nab a boring little test video clip with it. The trackball felt a little more recessed than my 8100’s, and more in line with the 8800. As mentioned elsewhere, the keys are snappier than the old Pearl’s – not so squishy, more stiff. Plan-wise, Telus is offering 3 months of unlimited data usage which is pretty nice. Obviously, we’re all skeptical of “unlimited”, but the rep assured me that they take into account laptop tethering and all that. The aforementioned Pocket Express, Facebook, and surprisingly BlackBerry Maps weren’t preloaded, but rather get downloaded once activated. It took the rep awhile to find that out because apparently not many other Telus stores have it in stock yet. BBSync’s probably still right that the whole country won’t be covered until November 6th. OS 4.3 was loaded in, but I didn’t have time to check it out before they had to squirrel the unit away again.